


feel this one

by moonmother



Category: VIXX
Genre: Explicit Sex, Frottage, M/M, Mentions of Violence, blowjob, fighter!leo, keo - Freeform, leo/ken - Freeform, mentions of drug use, sad boyfriends, sadboy!ken, taekhwan, that love each other a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:32:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonmother/pseuds/moonmother
Summary: Home is four walls and a roof, and Jaehwan feels just as empty.





	feel this one

**Author's Note:**

> ♩ swings - fallin' (ft. jay park)  
> original prompt: "where do you put your hands on someone who hurts everywhere?"

Jaehwan's always there when he comes home, waiting with sleep pulling on his eyes and sitting curled up in the hole-y armchair for the click of the latch and him to step through the door. Taekwoon will come home late always with a, "You don't have to wait up for me," every time. Every single time. He'll come home with bruises and cuts the length of Jaehwan's fingers and insist he's fine, that he's okay.  
  
He'll say that, but Jaehwan knows.  
  
The door creaks open tonight, and Taekwoon stumbles in. Jaehwan gets up as fast as he can which is very slow, maneuvering his leg from underneath him and grabbing his cane from beside the chair. By the time this has all happened, Taekwoon's got his palms on the chair's armrests leaning far into Jaehwan's space. He presses a tired kiss to Jaehwan's forehead. "Hi."  
  
Jaehwan gulps as he tries to figure out what sort of wounds Taekwoon bears, and he puts down the cane so his hands can dart up and catch the older's face before he moves away. A cut on the cheek, swelling under the eye…. Jaehwan's hands move lower, down his neck, over his shoulders, and soon Taekwoon takes the hands in his. "I'm fine."  
  
"You say that."  
  
"And I mean it."  
  
“And just because you say that," Jaehwan says, staring up at him, "doesn't mean you're not hurting." Only the street light filters through the blinds, and Taekwoon's cut up into strips of light and dark, and Jaehwan can already see the new bruises on him. "You––"  
  
Jaehwan's words are cut off by Taekwoon turning, hands still clasped, and bending to haul Jaehwan onto his back. "We're going upstairs." This happens too often for Jaehwan to be surprised or even protest, but Taekwoon, once awful at carrying him like this, has gotten much more steady and only wobbles a little as he brings them up the stairs.  
  
Jaehwan mumbles into the back of Taekwoon's neck, "You'll have to get my cane later."  
  
The bedroom is dark when they enter, and Taekwoon doesn't turn the lamp on, flopping them both onto their frameless mattress. Taekwoon lets Jaehwan separate and adjust himself, having to manually move his right leg into a position that isn't bothersome, and when he's ready, Taekwoon holds him close.  
  
"You should let me clean those," Jaehwan whispers, playing with Taekwoon's sweaty bangs. "I should clean those."  
  
"Not now."  
  
Jaehwan bites his lip. If his hand would fall to rest on Taekwoon's thigh, right at his pocket, he's sure there will be a roll of bills there; it'll be on the dresser next time he gets up. Jaehwan gets so frustrated sometimes when he watches the money move to the dresser and moved off the dresser.  
  
"How much longer?" Taekwoon is speaking into Jaehwan's chest where he's buried himself. "How much longer until you're out?"  
  
Squeezing Taekwoon to him, Jaehwan mentally counts off his fingers. "Little longer. Maybe another month?" He sucks in a breath. "Taekwoon, you don't have to––"  
  
"I can do another month.” Jaehwan’s leg suffered for him quitting the drug business, and his unfinished work would not go uncompleted; the men in greasy suits ordered that; sweetest Taekwoon ensured it. "It'll be okay."  
  
Taekwoon’s never been much of a fighter, but that's changed in the past year. The gym he inhabits has become a secondary home, once second to Jaehwan’s arms, now second to dark alleys. The cash he brings home proves that. He's hardened himself, grown a tough shell to protect him and Jaehwan, and he maintains it well, keeping it up even after he comes through the door.  
  
Taekwoon mumbles, "I love you," into Jaehwan's chest, and shifts so his eyes are looking into Jaehwan’s. There he is. The wall’s being lowered, and something unwinds in Jaehwan’s chest.  
  
"I love you, too," he returns, giving one last tug on Taekwoon's hair before clearing his throat. "Now, let's go clean you up.”  
  
Taekwoon, body still, slowly rises. It takes him a moment before he pulls Jaehwan up beside him. “Bathroom?” he asks.  
  
Jaehwan nods. Taekwoon doesn’t pull him onto his back, but takes Jaehwan’s weight into him, guiding an arm around his broad shoulders, Jaehwan’s weight bouncing into his hip. They move slower this way, but with the bedroom behind, the light of the bathroom will show it all. Taekwoon can’t be excited for that.  
  
He flips the light on, revealing peeling wallpaper and chipping floor tiles, ten years’ worth of dirt stuck in the grout, but he leaves Jaehwan’s side to hop onto the sink’s ledge. He’s expectant, the way he looks at Jaehwan –– shirt discarded, chin tucked in, eyes peering through eyelashes.  
  
As he should be.  
  
Jaehwan seals his lips shut and keeps remarks to himself. It won’t be anything that Taekwoon hasn’t heard from him before, and no plea or shred of wishful thinking will get him to stop. Jaehwan touches the bruising on Taekwoon’s collarbone. “Alley or ring?”  
  
Taekwoon doesn’t say anything. Alley.  
  
Jaehwan braces himself against the wall while he fishes for the first-aid kit. The plastic lid has a small drawing of a cartoon version of himself and Taekwoon fixing each other up. Jaehwan taped it there. “You need ice.”  
  
“I didn’t have time to pick some up,” Taekwoon says, fidgety as a muscle spasm.  
  
“You’re gonna sport blue and purple for awhile.” Taekwoon always is, though, so this won’t be something new. Jaehwan takes his fingers and puts them just under Taekwoon’s eye, where the swelling is. “This?”  
  
“Ring.”  
  
“It was that damn Lee guy, wasn’t it? His jab always gets you.” Jaehwan isn’t aware of his grimace until Taekwoon’s own fingers come up to massage the anger out of his mouth; he pushes it into a straight line.  
  
“Don’t make that face,” Taekwoon reminds, not for the first time. “His jab is all he has.”  
  
The kit shakes in his hands, and Jaehwan busies himself with opening it. “That and a big mouth. I don’t like him.” Taekwoon’s quiet. This is a conversation that they’ve thoroughly explored; anything said now is reiterated statements. “He carries himself like he’s big stuff, and then he shows off, smacking his gloves, and––”  
  
“Jaehwan.”  
  
“No, I have it.” Jaehwan fumbles for the antiseptic, handing the kit to Taekwoon so he won’t be juggling everything. Their little bottle is almost out. They’ll need more. “He’s just a pain in the ass.”  
  
Silence falls with Jaehwan dabbing antiseptic on Taekwoon’s split knuckles, the cuts on his skin. The toilet paper he’s using to dab comes away pink with diluted blood. Taekwoon’s fingers are back at Jaehwan’s mouth.  
  
“Fast and hard.” The toe of Taekwoon’s shoe is prodding Jaehwan in his good calf. “You gotta get in fast and hard, remember? Quick hands. Tight fists.”  
  
“And always go to bed on time, eat three meals a day, remember my please’s and thank you’s”  
  
“I’m being serious.”  
  
Taekwoon always does this –– remind Jaehwan of tips and pointers like he can stand his ground in a one-on-one fight. Jaehwan could try and fling his fists around all he wants, but no advice from Taekwoon can heal his leg, and that’s the impossibility, right there. There’s no getting away.  
  
Jaehwan used to run. He could run as fast as he wanted, feet carrying him through the darkest corners of the city, and get out of most situations just by knowing the ins-and-outs of alleys and his own speed. What he was carrying would bounce under his clothes, against his bare skin, and he felt death like that.  
  
Death on him. Hard and soft. Mixture of dust.  
  
Jaehwan tried it a few times, could always feel the overarching sense of purpose drain away in ebbs and dissolve like sugar in water. He hasn’t tried it in a year; he hasn’t held it in months. The time he tried it at home, in these bathroom walls, Taekwoon found him shaking on the floor, smile on his mouth.  
  
Taekwoon didn’t like that very much.  
  
He told Jaehwan as much, described his empty eyes that stared at nothing –– not Taekwoon, something beyond the ceiling that reached far beyond a physical boundary. You looked dead Jaehwan, he said with his hands twisted in bed sheets and brow twisted in anger. Hushed anger. His light voice barely carried it, restraining himself, since Jaehwan was only lucid for precious minutes before Taekwoon started.  
  
He hadn’t described the vicious loneliness, the quiet, he felt in the moments when Jaehwan was still and lost in his mind. It was only after his leg was hurt that Jaehwan realized what Taekwoon must have heard; alone in the house, confined to bed, Jaehwan heard nothing. It was a silence punctuated with the the aching of plastered walls, the small pinpricks of neighbors shouting, his own breathing. There was little more.  
  
It terrified him.  
  
He had Taekwoon experience that limbo of space, caught between the small sputters of sound and lapses of void, and cling to the bedsheets after moving Jaehwan’s unconscious body to their frameless bed. He had Taekwoon pick up after him, had left the bathroom a damn mess, had left Taekwoon a damn mess.  
  
Taekwoon wasn’t quite right with him for a few days after that. It wasn’t like he explicitly knew Jaehwan was dipping into what he carried, and in truth, Jaehwan could count on one hand the times that he had. This wasn’t frequent. He wasn’t addicted. It was addictive stuff, but Jaehwan wasn’t bound.  
  
Rather, he was bound by employment, bound by word.  
  
Jaehwan broke that when he walked into the backroom of the bar over on the corner of the past and future, where Jaehwan trudged to the bar with his eyes turned low and hands stuffed in his coat, where Jaehwan left in a brigade of firm hands with his coat long gone and sporting a bruise on his cheek.  
  
He made that trip out of disappointment in himself. He made that trip to ease Taekwoon’s worries, that he wouldn’t be running around in the shadows any longer. He made that trip to move on.  
  
Jaehwan now doesn’t move like he used to.  
  
“I think that’s most of the blood,” Jaehwan comments, pink tissue collected at the bottom of their trashcan. Taekwoon’s cuts still look angry, ooze red, but it’s enough to where they won’t soak the bandaids. Jaehwan places the nude bandages on Taekwoon’s pale skin, blue maze of his veins always peeking through.  
  
“Did the neighbor stop by?”  
  
“Yeah, and she was wondering where you were.” Jaehwan meets Taekwoon’s eyes briefly. “She was quite curious.”  
  
“What’d you two make today?” He winces as Jaehwan prods at his collarbone.  
  
“They really got you there.”  
  
Taekwoon leans forward, using his flat palm to smack the fullness of Jaehwan’s hip, angling more to the rear of him. He doesn’t get a full handful as Jaehwan is leaning heavily against the wall, but it’s not meant to be serious. Jaehwan smiles.  
  
“‘ _Quick hands_ ,’” Jaehwan mimics in his best Taekwoon impersonation. His small chuckles are what hold off another warning touch; Taekwoon’s too busy with Jaehwan’s smile to worry about the teasing.  
  
“Jaehwan, what’d you make?”  
  
“Oh.” Side-tracked, Jaehwan pauses with an unwrapped bandaid stuck to his finger. “Soup. With vegetables. There’s still some in the kitchen; you must be hungry.”  
  
Taekwoon shakes his head. “I’ll have some tomorrow for breakfast.”  
  
“You’ll like it.”  
  
Jaehwan places the bandaid with precision, lining it up although his fingers shake.  
  
Taekwoon had looked for him then. Desperate and hopeless, he searched and searched the city for Jaehwan. He’s this tall, wears his hair like this, eyes like this; Taekwoon asked and asked. Has anyone seen him?  
  
Jaehwan woke up shoved against a dumpster. Everything hurt, and then the true pain jolted through him. It was stabbing, like someone had driven a knife into him and kept _twisting_. Tears sprung to his eyes within moments of consciousness.  
  
His leg. He couldn’t–– It wouldn’t––   
  
And then getting home. Finding his way home was agony, limping and stumbling through the dark city. Night smothered him and illuminated him dually. It kept him pressed in, limited his senses; it highlighted him to others looking for an easy target.  
  
What had Taekwoon told him –– hands up, shoulders square, minimize….  
  
It was early morning by the time he rapped on his front door. He spent almost an hour trying to get up his own porch steps; it felt that long. Tears were wet on cheeks, the pain unbearable; he was dizzy from it –– weak. He wasn’t sure how he made it without crawling. His fist pounded six times on the old, creaky thing, weakly moaning Taekwoon’s name.  
  
Jaehwan sounded dead. His voice raw and choked with equal parts of watery distress and fear. The door swung inward to reveal Taekwoon’s sleep-mussed shape, framed against the lamp light inside. He answered much to quick to have heard the knocks from upstairs. Jaehwan wanted to ask, were you on the couch? were you waiting for me?, but he can’t; he’s crying and his leg and, _oh god_.  
  
Panic. Panic was in Taekwoon’s face, his arms, his hands that catch Jaehwan to him, drag him inside, place him on the cold floor. Jaehwan was in ruins. Blood stained his clothes, seeping down his skin, and his leg didn’t look _right_ –– twisted and the colors weren’t his own. His cheeks were wet, and his hands were holding Taekwoon’s so tight. Taekwoon couldn’t believe that this was his boy. His boy reduced to this.  
  
Who did this.  
  
The answer was obvious, but Taekwoon couldn’t stop asking, wild eyes, as he figured out what to do. Jaehwan…he needed a doctor, someone. Taekwoon was no doctor.  
  
“That’s good, Jaehwan,” Taekwoon says, presently. “I’m good.”  
  
Jaehwan puts the bottle back in the first-aid kit, the far too-used kit, and shuts the lid. His fingers run over the worn drawing. “How many asses did you kick tonight?”  
  
Taekwoon snorts, a smile not far behind the soft noise, and Taekwoon’s patched up hands find Jaehwan’s. “Bed.” He pulls Jaehwan to him, between the cage of his legs, and curls to his loose form. He holds him there for a few moments, breathing into the skin of Jaehwan’s neck.  
  
“I’m not that tired.”  
  
“You say that, but you’ll fall asleep if I do.”  
  
Jaehwan pouts, Taekwoon’s hair tickling his face. “There’s nothing to do when you’re not here or if you’re asleep.”  
  
Taekwoon’s fingertips dig into the thin nightshirt he’s wearing, and those same prints are dug into Jaehwan’s bones, each and every one. Jaehwan shivers. He’s felt him deep and dark, the corners of his soul knowing Taekwoon’s as if the two have been stitched together to grow in the way a tree does, knitting itself to what it comes into contact with.  
  
Jaehwan’s felt him deep and in the dark, hands sliding over Taekwoon’s body, hands sliding up his own.  
  
Jaehwan’s loneliness runs deep as he’s left in the dark while he waits through night for Taekwoon to come home, wait for the sun to take him away again.  
  
“I’m like your little housewife.” Bitter. He’s bitter; he can hear it; Jaehwan doesn’t mean to let it infect what he meant as a joke.  
  
Taekwoon’s hands slide up from his back with his fingers now hooking over Jaehwan’s shoulders. He’s still crushed into Taekwoon, forehead resting on the medicine cabinet’s mirror. His eyes look strange.  
  
“You’re not.”  
  
“I bake you food and wait around for you –– that’s all I do now.”  
  
“It’s very good food.” Taekwoon isn’t mentioning the countless burned dishes and smoke hazards Jaehwan’s told him in stories. He’s being polite and untruthful and this increases Jaehwan’s discontent. Taekwoon’s bleeding –– oh, he’s put together again, but he’s still bleeding, will bleed tomorrow and the next day and whenever he goes out to carry out the rest of Jaehwan’s contract.  
  
“You’re used to your own schedule. Movement.” Taekwoon’s thumbs are rubbing small circles into him. “But now you’re stuck here.”  
  
Jaehwan nods. “It’s not just being here; it’s being _alone_ , Taekwoon.”  
  
“The neighbor lady has been visiting….”  
  
“That helps, but I’m bored. All I do is sit around all day. Stare out the window.” Jaehwan’s reflection opens his mouth, mouths the words, “I miss you.” That’s the closest he’ll ever come to saying it out loud.  
  
“Just a little longer, okay? Then I can drop the extra stuff, and I can just be at the gym, and it’ll be better, okay?”  
  
Jaehwan kisses Taekwoon’s neck, and he can feel the backs of his eyes burn. He focuses on the reflection of his forehead, willing the sensation away. Don’t let it. Don’t let it. Can’t let it win.  
  
The hands drop to Jaehwan’s hips, massaging them, and Taekwoon whispers in their tiny bathroom an unintelligible mess of words that might match Jaehwan’s own sentiments. No more, he tells himself, he can’t bother Taekwoon with it anymore. That’s enough. Jaehwan’s loneliness is the least of the worries they have to deal with.  
  
“It’s been awhile since we’ve– we’ve just been together.” Jaehwan’s willing the shakiness out of his voice. _Can’t let it win_. His craving for him is just a simple, dirty desire and not an empty hole in his chest –– Jaehwan tries to make it come off that way. “Taekwoon, I–– tonight, please?”  
  
“Jaehwan.”  
  
Jaehwan’s fingers trail up the flat planes of Taekwoon’s tummy, hardened in recent times. It used to be so soft. His fingers dance over Taekwoon’s bare pectorals and draw little swirls under his collarbones, light enough to not bother his bruises. Taekwoon eases Jaehwan back far enough for him to get off the sink; he neglects to pick up his shirt.  
  
They get back to the bedroom, and Taekwoon stands Jaehwan before the bed, undressing him slowly. With their shirts off, the differences between the two are more drastic. Even disregarding Taekwoon’s bruises, flowering across his pale chest in blurred splotches, their bodies are built differently. There’s a softer slope in Jaehwan’s shoulders to contrast Taekwoon’s wider ones. There’s soft skin on Jaehwan’s stomach where Taekwoon’s is tight; his collarbones push against his skin; his arms have become more shaped, streamlined and hard.  
  
Taekwoon’s not the type to have muscles upon muscles, rippling in low light and straining against his clothes; rather they sit close to him, hugging his bones, providing the definition when asked. But there are dips where his abs are, grooves that Jaehwan drags his fingers along when they’re awake in bed together.  
  
Jaehwan finds the particularly nasty one by his rib that looks suspicious, what he was eyeing in the bathroom. He hopes that if anything it’s knuckles, not a boot, not something like a bat.  
  
“Hurt?”  
  
Taekwoon doesn’t answer, pushing the band of Jaehwan’s pants down over his thighs to pool on the floor. He pokes at Jaehwan’s hip bones. “What’s the fridge look like?”  
  
“We can make a list in the morning.”  
  
There’s a siren wailing in the distance but it leaks through the walls with the moonlight. Jaehwan’s fingers slide into Taekwoon’s pants, loose and cinched at his waist with a belt, and once undone they fall in the same fashion as Jaehwan’s. Taekwoon’s looking at him, but it feels so distant. Like there’s an impenetrable barrier between them that’s growing. It’s been awhile since they’ve talked about something besides their own burdens; it’s been awhile since Jaehwan’s begun to despise watching Taekwoon slap his earnings against their dresser; it’s felt like a lifetime since Jaehwan’s been able to hold Taekwoon and not brush against his hurt.  
  
Jaehwan was waking out of his delirium when he noticed Taekwoon wasn’t there. His leg felt heavy against the bed, tangled in the sheets, and his breathing rose, his heartbeat fast, struggling to move. His body was in sync; it cried out as his spine twisted; every bit of him of was sore, sharp pain flying through the bits of him that he never imagined could ache like this.  
  
Gasping, he laid still. There was something keeping his leg straight, and it took him a bit but he found out that there’s a full splint reaching over his knee, up his thigh. The alley, the faces, the dumpster –– that rushed back to him in a wave of nauseating images. Right behind them was a solo shot of Taekwoon’s petrification. His eyes. His fingers had shaken where they had pressed into him.  
  
“T– Taekwoon?” Jaehwan called out. His voice was hoarse; sun was warm on the floor. Jaehwan got no answer, and it was hours before the creak of the front door opened, then the bedroom door, and his love peeked into the room.  
  
“Where were you?”  
  
Taekwoon looked haggard with his hair unwashed, his shirt equally dirty. He looked faded, like an old photograph frayed at the edges and washed out. Things have been tough lately, but Jaehwan’s never seen him look so unraveled. An escaping ball of yarn.  
  
He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows propped up by his knees, the harsh curve of his back trembling under the invisible weight of everything. He couldn’t look at Jaehwan. Not even when Jaehwan’s fingers tugged at the bottom of his shirt, not even when Jaehwan asked and asked what was wrong, where did he go, Taekwoon, _please_.  
  
Jaehwan knew then. Taekwoon may have told him hours later after laying down beside him, breaking the truth as waves do upon jagged rocks, but it was something he expected, it was something Taekwoon would have to do.  
  
Debts weigh heavy, and Taekwoon swings heavier. A trade, he proposed inside the bar –– past and future in tandem –– eyeing each and every fucker who laid a finger on his boy, who gathered up their grubby fists and soiled his skin with broken blood vessels and tore him apart. Taekwoon would remember their faces. He would imprint their faces to his mind, not forget a single detail; Taekwoon would never forget.  
  
He cleared his throat; he had their attention. He gave his name; he gave Jaehwan’s. Now he had them wound tight around his fists. These fists had torn through skin, crunching against bone, in the ring. He could probably do the same to them.  
  
A trade, he proposed, fighting instead of running; he would serve the rest of Jaehwan’s contract.  
  
“Taekwoon.” He has Jaehwan’s hips in his hands, steadying him as they stand together. Taekwoon hasn’t offered to go get Jaehwan’s cane; they must be staying up here for the rest of the night. “Taekwoon, can I––”  
  
“You were practically asleep when I got home.” There’s a shyness, a regretfulness, in Taekwoon’s voice, that Jaehwan knows well. There’s also the underlying current of emotion that has Taekwoon’s fingers pushing into his skin –– tighter, tighter.  
  
Jaehwan whispers, “Lie down. On the bed.” His hand drifts lower to between Taekwoon’s legs, feeling him through his thin boxers. His hold is light; his hold is telling. “Taekwoon.”  
  
Taekwoon leans his head onto Jaehwan’s shoulder, and he sighs into his skin, the fall of his shoulder. It’s a heavy sigh, not one of content. It’s stress. “Hey,” Jaehwan says softly, “Taekwoon.”  
  
Taekwoon sucks in a breath, and Jaehwan can feel his fingers twisting in the air to the sensations of Jaehwan’s palm. He rotates his hand and can feel Taekwoon twist a bit as well, already affected.  
  
“Bed.”  
  
Taekwoon pulls at Jaehwan’s wrist, away and up, and then tugs Jaehwan close to him to maneuver him to the bed. He stands Jaehwan against the edge and, with a small smile tugged onto his mouth, pushes Jaehwan’s shoulders, and the younger lets himself drop back against the blankets. He lands soft. He lands with Taekwoon crawling over him. There’s pain in his face, but he hitches up his smile higher for Jaehwan, one of those bitten ones that he loves.  
  
“Lie down,” Jaehwan directs. He rolls over to make room for Taekwoon, who eases down to lie against the pillows, and Jaehwan, with some fidgeting and moving, can finally hover properly. “Stay still.”  
  
Taekwoon’s breaths hinge on anticipation. They shudder and watch as Jaehwan studies his stomach, uses a finger to loop around the divots in his muscles, to dip into them, to trail against his skin. He puts his lips just under the convergence of his ribs, the strength of his stomach tensing as Jaehwan’s kisses run lower.  
  
His hands press hard into the mattress, and Taekwoon’s hands are twisting near them, not in the blankets, just sifting air through his fingers. “I miss you,” Jaehwan doesn’t say. He kisses it into the sharp bone of Taekwoon’s hip, neglecting to use syntax.  
  
“Jaehwan,” Taekwoon breathes, a little more loose and not as wound, “I’m sore; really sore….”  
  
“I’ll be gentle.”  
  
“No, I––” his breath hitches as Jaehwan’s finger slides up to brush the outside of Taekwoon’s neck, “I won’t be able to take care of you, I don’t think.”  
  
“I can take care of myself.”  
  
Taekwoon falls silent in time for Jaehwan’s eyes to flicker up at him, connecting as he presses his mouth just above Taekwoon’s navel. He’s careful to avoid Taekwoon’s bruises and cuts. He’s careful to suck lightly, avoiding teeth, to soothe rather than add to the aches.  
  
The soft thump of Taekwoon’s head against the pillow prods a small smile to Jaehwan’s mouth, and he takes a good moment to readjust himself, knees tucked closer in the wide V of Taekwoon’s legs, taking less pressure off his hands to use them freely. He uses these fingers to trail touches up Taekwoon’s sides, to ghost over his skin.  
  
Jaehwan remembers the sweat, the grime of the gym in the city’s lower end. He met Taekwoon there. His hair was drenched and tied back in a knot. His knuckles were bruised –– his ego as well. He’d just gotten his ass kicked.  
  
The hunch of his shoulders, the crinkle in his brow, was uninviting. It was to ward off conversation, but Jaehwan sat beside him on the sticky bench, hiding his breathless behind a small stream of chatter that Taekwoon didn’t seem to appreciate at all. Jaehwan’s eyes would glance toward the gym entrance; no one was following him –– good.  
  
It was sparing when Jaehwan would duck into the gym for cover. He’d see Taekwoon in the ring, fists accurate and calculating, about to land a punch and–– oh, so close. Someone would get past his guard, and he’d fall onto the ropes round after round. He’s gotten much better since then. He can read bodies like a second language, Jaehwan’s included.  
  
Jaehwan pulls the front of Taekwoon’s underwear down, nosing along the hidden flesh, before placing tiny open-mouth kisses along him. He doesn’t say how much he misses Taekwoon; he never does.  
  
Taekwoon makes a noise, soft like butterfly’s wings against air, and that’s all it really is –– breath getting choked up as it runs through him. Taekwoon stuffs his palms over his mouth anyway. No matter how many times Jaehwan’s told him he doesn’t have to.  
  
Much in the same way Taekwoon flattened the frown from Jaehwan’s mouth, Jaehwan takes a single hand to peel back the thread of fingers from Taekwoon’s. “It’s pretty,” he says, starting to get full of himself. “Don’t.”  
  
And Taekwoon never looks convinced at that, and will do everything in his power to bite back, but soon enough that won’t be possible. Jaehwan knows.  
  
His second hand returns to hold onto the edges of Taekwoon’s underwear, smearing his face along Taekwoon’s cock. He doesn’t have to ask Taekwoon to stay or not to go –– he doesn’t get to, not for what Taekwoon’s given up to fight for him –– but, in these moments, Jaehwan can’t hold back. If it comes across, Taekwoon never mentions it.  
  
Tongue peeking out from Jaehwan’s lips and small licks to Taekwoon’s base.  
  
“You looked lonely,” Jaehwan said in their first meeting, fingers sliding against a sweat-dried bench, and Taekwoon peering at him through falling fringe. “You mind teaching me to lose like you do?” He smiled and before the insult could be absorbed, Jaehwan waved a hand. “I’m kidding.”  
  
Taekwoon huffed and stood, moving away from Jaehwan, and it wasn’t until a few weeks later when Jaehwan could ask again, this time without the threat of being caught making him too nervous, too out-of-line. He watched outside of Taekwoon’s ring and watched him duck and weave, landing a few hits before taking them himself. He could hear the talk around him, jeers and boos, and he was standing in the midst of it –– probably as Taekwoon’s sole support.  
  
The dark-haired young man slid past the ropes, brows heavy, and Jaehwan sidled up to him then. “You should teach me how to fight.”  
  
Taekwoon’s hips wiggle in his grip, slight tremors in the bookends of Jaehwan’s hands. He kisses the underside of Taekwoon’s cock, and a whimper that can’t be smothered makes it to Jaehwan’s ears. He smiles. Careful, always careful, he opens his mouth and takes in Taekwoon.  
  
“Sl– slow down.”  
  
Taekwoon’s warning comes from the sensation of him hitting the back of Jaehwan’s throat so quickly. Warm and wet, Jaehwan makes a sound of appeasement that runs through him, travels through Taekwoon, and he squirms more in Jaehwan’s hold.  
  
Jaehwan eases off a bit, sinks back down, comes up and glances at Taekwoon. Taekwoon’s watching. The older’s hands bring themselves to Jaehwan’s hair, in the thick strands, and holds on. His face is twisted with the pleasure Jaehwan’s learned to read so well, and it’s a small victory compared to the twisted pain he wore on his return.  
  
“How’s that feel?” Jaehwan asks that with his lips at the edge of Taekwoon’s cock, warm breath ghosting over him.  
  
Taekwoon nods, and Jaehwan likes the feel of Taekwoon’s hands in his hair. He likes the simple admission that he’s doing good. His own underwear feels tight and wet, but he won’t dare to touch himself until Taekwoon’s taken care of.  
  
His lips are giving feather light touches to the tip, slick with Jaehwan’s own spit and small beads of pre-come. And, because Taekwoon asked, Jaehwan goes slower this time, using his hands to stimulate what’s not inside him yet. The hold on Taekwoon is loose, is sliding and slow.  
  
Bit by bit.  
  
“J– Jaehwan.”  
  
His name sounds beautiful spoken in this breathy, whining version. Hushed and pleading. Taekwoon curls his hands tighter in dark strands, and he’s starting to feel the effects of Jaehwan’s mouth.  
  
Jaehwan’s hands fall lower to Taekwoon’s bare thighs and presses his thumbs to the insides, fingers to the outsides. They’ve grown fuller with Taekwoon’s need to fight, but the insides are soft as they have always been. Sensitive under Jaehwan’s heated touch.  
  
Taekwoon hisses when Jaehwan’s mouth leaves him to move lower to the thighs he sits between. His face against the left, Jaehwan kisses it and licks a long line up back up to where Taekwoon’s erection sits. He places a kiss there as well, to the head, but moves to the other leg. He trails kisses and memories down this one.  
  
Taekwoon giving Jaehwan pointers, waiting under a rainy awning –– kiss –– walking dark city streets hand-in-hand –– kiss –– waking up to Taekwoon’s morning breath and stale coffee –– kiss –– finding home.  
  
Jaehwan sits back on his heels, and Taekwoon’s hands fall away from him. He looks picturesque; he’s the type of boy you immortalize in paint and frames with his scars and curves and call beautiful for decades. He looks crushed but alive; down but ready to keep fighting. Jaehwan doesn’t know how he ever got to keep him, as Jaehwan’s very own back alley hero.  
  
He almost says it now –– two different sets of three letter words. It’d be appropriate, maybe Taekwoon would even return them in small gasps, but he doesn’t want his own burden of words to shatter Taekwoon’s moment. Later, he can…he can say them later.  
  
Jaehwan walks his hands up the sides of Taekwoon’s body, aligning their mouths, and Jaehwan’s smile matches Taekwoon’s. Both caught in the moonlight. Taekwoon’s hand catches between them both, catches the front of Jaehwan’s underwear.  
  
Jaehwan’s quiet; he knows Taekwoon has something to ask; he’s trying to word it as he fingers the damp fabric.  
  
“I want….”  
  
“Mm, yes?”  
  
“I want to feel you,” Taekwoon tugs on the underwear. “Against me –– I want you against me.” Jaehwan’s about protest, but Taekwoon’s not finished. “Not fuck me. Just––” He lifts up his hips, knocking them into Jaehwan’s, and Jaehwan understands.  
  
He sits back to shuck off his underwear and Taekwoon follows to help. With their combined efforts it finally gets tossed off the bed, and Jaehwan tugs Taekwoon’s off his hips and off his long legs.  
  
Hands grab at Jaehwan’s back, pulling him down with Taekwoon, and they lie flat together for a moment. The percussion of their hearts is the only sound. Jaehwan pulls his head back to look into Taekwoon’s face; there’s an infinite amount of things he wants to tell him between now and the time he has to leave again, will start the cycle over, will be back tomorrow night with a slap of money against wood. He’ll be back, has to be back.  
  
Jaehwan kisses him.  
  
He mouths at Taekwoon’s neck –– no teeth, no teeth –– and asks, “Are you okay?” Is this good? Am I hurting you?  
  
“It’s fine,” Taekwoon works out, pinched and cut off with a gasp when Jaehwan rolls his hips into him. His breath stutters. His eyelids flutter. Dark lashes against his pale cheekbones.  
  
Jaehwan does it again, drawing it out, and the hardness between them can’t be ignored. Jaehwan sighs at the contact. It’s been so long. He pushes himself up, but Taekwoon’s hands are latched to his back so he doesn’t go far. Leaning his weight on his good side, Jaehwan takes both their dicks into his hand and begins to pump in a steady manner, sliding his hand along working both back to full hardness.  
  
It’s in this way that Taekwoon looks vulnerable. His eyes lose their guard, the wary look lost in these moments; they shine with a glitter of want and wonder, and Jaehwan doesn’t dare let his focus drift from them.  
  
Their whines mix together, a smattering of half-noises, and Jaehwan knows that Taekwoon is close when his hand drifts between them to uncurl Jaehwan’s fingers and to take over for him, his grip only on Jaehwan. Taekwoon can read that Jaehwan’s not as close as he is, and he’ll wait.  
  
Taekwoon’s pace is fast, like Jaehwan likes it. Fast, fast, stop –– drag it out. He repeats that a few times, twisting his hand just so, and Jaehwan’s feeling close to the ledge, about to topple over. His shoulder muscles burn –– so close, so close.  
  
“Taekwoon,” he pants. It barely sounds like his name. His touch, his rough fingertips on Jaehwan’s sensitive skin.  
  
Taekwoon breathes, “Alright,” and lets Jaehwan take hold again. Their hands touch, smiles covered by the hot air and friction between them, and almost in time –– so close –– do they become wet and sticky against each other, one first then the other following. Their stomachs are covered in it, a bit is on Jaehwan’s neck, and Taekwoon’s hand still pumps Jaehwan, taking him through it, making sure he’s completely spent before letting his hand drag away, a string of come following.  
  
Jaehwan drops onto Taekwoon as lightly as he can, Taekwoon’s chest deflating with a puff of air. “Sorry,” he says, but Taekwoon’s lips find his, sealing to his and perfect.  
  
Taekwoon is latched to him like that, sucking on Jaehwan’s mouth. The residue from both lingers on Jaehwan’s lips, and they taste themselves and each other. Taekwoon’s hand comes up to smear wet along the dip of Jaehwan’s neck, near his collarbone, and they’ll need to wash up.  
  
“I wasn’t supposed to come all over you,” Jaehwan says thickly, dropping his face onto Taekwoon’s shoulder. “I ruined all your bandages, and we’ll need a shower.”  
  
Taekwoon laughs. It sounds pressed with Jaehwan on his ribcage, soft in light of their aftermath. “I know. It’s alright.” His hand comes up to play with Jaehwan’s hair, twirling it and threading it between his fingers; he’s heading off the guilt that is creeping into Jaehwan as his heartbeat falls.  
  
Taekwoon can read Jaehwan.  
  
“Don’t feel bad,” he whispers. Taekwoon rolls Jaehwan off him, giving a kiss on his cheekbone, and sits up. “Shower?”  
  
“Take me there, sir.”  
  
Back in cold tile, they stand under the lukewarm stream –– Taekwoon’s elbow hooked with Jaehwan’s just as a precaution for falling. Jaehwan’s forehead finds Taekwoon’s chest again, and the older washes him down. He can’t reciprocate that.  
  
“I’ll be asleep by the time I have to put your bandages back on.”  
  
Taekwoon massages soap into Jaehwan’s hair, and Jaehwan can only imagine how those shoulders stay up under all that Taekwoon has to carry. Among Jaehwan and the money and the worries, Taekwoon gets jack shit for it. All that he works for and there is no compensation.  
  
One day, is the litany. One day, one day, one day.  
  
Jaehwan fixes Taekwoon up once more, shower skin caressing the picture on the first-aid kit. “You ready?” Taekwoon brings them back to the bedroom for a third time, last time tonight –– strips the bed, covers them in an old blanket from the closet. Arms winding around Jaehwan’s waist, his chest touches Taekwoon’s as neither bothered to get dressed.  
  
Taekwoon falls asleep in an instant with his breath falling as sighs into Jaehwan’s hair, almost a mirror image of how they were an hour ago, and Jaehwan is left to trace the words he wants to say so badly, so desperately, into Taekwoon’s back. His shaking finger tells all.

**Author's Note:**

> \- title taken from swings's song "fallin'"  
> \- thank you for reading!✨


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